Shops making the cut

SPOKANE, Wash. -- It all started with a bad haircut.

In this midsize Eastern Washington city, where the mullet is still a socially acceptable hairstyle, Bill Nordstrom was disappointed after a trip to the barber.

The result was Weldon Barber, a string of upscale men-only barbershops devoted to the customer service his family's Nordstrom department stores made famous.

Nordstrom, 41, is the main investor in Weldon Barber, which opened six shops in Spokane and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, last fall.

The company's name, a play on the words "well done," was chosen in a series of meetings between Nordstrom and Julie Kembel, a longtime friend of Nordstrom's wife, Suzette.

The former college friends reunited after Nordstrom resigned in August 2000 as executive vice president of Nordstrom's East Coast operations and moved back to Spokane, where Suzette Nordstrom grew up.

A former executive vice president and cousin of Nordstrom Inc. President Blake Nordstrom, Nordstrom spent time in the 1980s at the family's Spokane store.

"My background (in retail sales) led me to believe it's possible to do this," Nordstrom said in a recent interview. "My wife said maybe this is something that would be a good business. It occurred to me it might be."

Visitors to the shops are offered coffee, cola or bottled water as they wait in oversized leather chairs, a coffee table overflowing with men's magazines under a large plasma screen television.

For $22, customers get scalp and shoulder massages, hot mint- scented facial towels, a razor trim and haircut by a specially trained barber. Hair coloring and beard trims are extra.

Weldon Barber is being launched when traditional barbers are closing, but spa-style men's parlors are gaining popularity.

Several national marketing surveys estimate the men's hair care industry to be a $10 billion to $15 billion a year proposition. The Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts growth in specialty barbering, with traditional barbershops hanging on.

"We have been looking at growth in the number of salon-spas exclusively for men," said Wendy Liebmann, president of WSL Strategic Retail, a New York market research company.

"When we started looking at the industry, traditional barbershops were, statistically, the fastest-shrinking category in the 'beauty' industry," Nordstrom said.

Commodity franchises, such as Supercuts, are part of the reason, Nordstrom said.

"It's hard for barbershops to compete against price-competitive models," he said. "We thought there was room in the market for an alternative that was more service-oriented. What we have found, it's being well received."

Plans are for expansion to other cities in the Northwest and eventually, nationally, Kembel said. The company is looking to open another six stores in the Seattle area next fall.

"We wanted to make sure that the No. 1 focus was the customer and the employee," she said. "It's a people business, so we want to make sure that we are being consistent with the customer as well as consistent with our employees."

That makes for a more portable business, she said.

"We wanted to make sure that whether the customer went to a shop in downtown Spokane, or whether he goes to a shop, potentially, in Seattle or wherever, that he gets the same consistent quality experience each time," Kembel said.

Attention to detail, a hallmark of the Nordstrom department stores, is what will separate Weldon Barber from its competitors, she said.

"There are so many details that we have perfected; to know that these are the things men will embrace, they'll enjoy and that they ultimately will be loyal to," she said. "It's consistent, it's quality, it's clean, it's dependable, comfortable, masculine and it's a great haircut. There are a lot of things that go into that $22 haircut and this experience."

The stores all are company-owned, not franchises, to ensure consistent service every time, Kembel said.

Although the shops do not offer the full "spa" experience, the company is studying requests for other services, such as manicures, facials and full face shaves, she said.

Spokane, with a metropolitan population of about 400,000, offers the perfect test market, Nordstrom said.

"A market like Spokane has a lot of diversity and different neighborhoods where we could put locations in and see the responses we got and make changes to services," Nordstrom said. "It's not your standard franchise model because we are taking a more service- oriented approach than is out there currently."

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